A Man's Place: Annie Ernaux

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Annie Ernaux’s father died exactly two months after she passed her exams for a teaching certificate. The next time I feel like whining about my lot in life I think I’ll just grab this book and read a few pages and that will set me straight. In this sense, maybe, translating “La Place”, the original French title, as “A Man’s Place”, was a good idea.

A Man’s Place by Annie Ernaux | Fitzcarraldo Editions

ernaux ile gerçekten aynı frekansta, ne bileyim, aynı ses dalgası düzeyindeymişiz gibi hissediyorum.Ernaux usa uno stile anteriore, mette fra la penna e il sé sulla pagina una distanza oggettiva che crea una storia di fiducia e innocenza e nel linguaggio lirico ci consegna un segreto fedele al riparo necessario, alla comune salvezza, alla sorvegliata destinazione. viết với lối trần thuật và những câu văn gãy gọn như thể chẳng có tí cảm xúc nào, như thể đang kể về một ai đó xa lạ, Annie Ernaux thực ra đang cố gắng che giấu những tình cảm dạt dào không biết cách nào để thổ lộ của người con dành cho người cha - có vẻ khô khan, xa cách về tình cảm - của mình. I also read it now because I saw Ilse had been reading Ernaux’s work and as so often happens with Ilse, she nudged me (gently, urgently) through her lovely review to read her work.

A Man’s Place | novel by Ernaux | Britannica

When her father’s body is undressed in front of the narrator, his penis is on show, and her mother quickly covers it up, joking, “Hide your misery, my poor man! She tells us she initially tried to begin a novel about him, but became “disgusted” with the ways it felt betrayed his working class, non-literary roots. I think he was proud of Annie as she went through college, but apparently he was sort of jealous of her at times and she was ashamed of him at times.The men of that generation (and perhaps most generations) operate behind a frosted glass wall that diffuses direct emotional connection. Not really a surprise that this is another 5-star read in Ernaux’s oeuvre, as it’s similar to the stories she wrote about her mother, only the central character here is her father. Rather than picking up traditional realism in the style of Balzac or Flaubert, she elects for a sparse, factual prose, albeit one dealing with an intensely personal topic …she sifts through the soil of her roots.